Adactio: Links—Tagged with file

File over app — Steph Ango

In the fullness of time, the files you create are more important than the tools you use to create them. Apps are ephemeral, but your files have a chance to last.

Accessibility Personas

Personas are often toothless, but these accessibility personas from gov.uk are more practical and useful than most:

Each profile has a different simulation of their persona’s condition and runs the assistive technology they use to help them.

You can use these profiles to experience the web from the perspective of the personas and gain more understanding of accessibility issues.

Octavia Butler’s Science Fiction Predicted the World We Live In - The New York Times

A profile of the life and work of the brilliant Octavia E. Butler.

Utopian project kickstarter — Figma

Do you like the ideas behind Utopia? Do you use Figma?

If the answer to both those questions is “yes”, then James has made a very handy Figma community file for you:

This work-in-progress is intended as a starting point for designers to start exploring the Utopia approach, thinking about type and space in fluid scales rather than device-based breakpoints.

Write plain text files | Derek Sivers

If you rely on Word, Evernote or Notion, for example, then you can’t work unless you have Word, Evernote, or Notion. You are helpless without them. You are dependent.

But if you only use plain text, you can use any program on any device, forever. It gives great flexibility and peace of mind.

EStimator.dev: the modern JavaScript savings calculator

Find out how much smaller your JavaScript could be.

Creating websites with prefers-reduced-data | Polypane Browser for Developers

There’s no browser support yet but that doesn’t mean we can’t start adding prefers-reduced-data to our media queries today. I like the idea of switching between web fonts and system fonts.

AVIF has landed - JakeArchibald.com

There’s a new image format on the browser block and it’s very performant indeed. Jake has all the details you didn’t ask for.

Why 543 KB keep me up at night - Manuel Matuzović

How and when did I get to the point where I would consider a page weight of 4 MB on a large page and 500 KB on a small page normal?

This isn’t just a well-earned rant from Manuel. I mean, it *is that, but it’s also packed with practical performance advice.

Fit on a Floppy

Here’s a nice little test for the file size of your web pages—could they fit on a floppy disk?

The Session fits comfortably and adactio.com just about scrapes by.

JavaScript | 2019 | The Web Almanac by HTTP Archive

It’s time for a look at the state of the web when it comes to JavaScript usage. Here’s the report powered by data from HTTP Archive:

JavaScript is the most costly resource we send to browsers; having to be downloaded, parsed, compiled, and finally executed. Although browsers have significantly decreased the time it takes to parse and compile scripts, download and execution have become the most expensive stages when JavaScript is processed by a web page.

Sending smaller JavaScript bundles to the browser is the best way to reduce download times, and in turn improve page performance. But how much JavaScript do we really use?

When it comes to frameworks and UI libraries, there are some interesting numbers. Given the volume of chatter in the dev world, you’d be forgiven for thinking that React is used on the majority of websites today. The real number? 4.6% of websites. That’s less than the number of websites using CSS custom properties.

This is reminding me of what I wrote about dev perception.

Everything is Amazing, But Nothing is Ours – alexdanco.com

Worlds of scarcity are made out of things. Worlds of abundance are made out of dependencies. That’s the software playbook: find a system made of costly, redundant objects; and rearrange it into a fast, frictionless system made of logical dependencies. The delta in performance is irresistible, and dependencies are a compelling building block: they seem like just a piece of logic, with no cost and no friction. But they absolutely have a cost: the cost is complexity, outsourced agency, and brittleness. The cost of ownership is up front and visible; the cost of access is back-dated and hidden.

Blot – A blogging platform with no interface

This looks like a nice way to get a blog up and running:

Blot turns a folder into a blog. Drag-and-drop ﬁles inside to publish. Images, text ﬁles, Word Documents, Markdown and more become blog posts automatically.

Progressive Font Enrichment: reinventing web font performance | Responsive Web Typography

Jason describes the next big thing in web typography: streaming fonts!

…to enable the ability for only the required part of the font be downloaded on any given page, and for subsequent requests for that font to dynamically ‘patch’ the original download with additional sets of glyphs as required on successive page views—even if they occur on separate sites.

If a limit does get enforced (it’s important to remember this is still a big if right now), as long as it’s handled with care I can see it being an excellent thing for the web that prioritizes users, while still giving developers the ability to take control of the situation themselves.

Link tags: file

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